What's the Cost Per Page of a Government Manual

$840.  According to this Defenseone article.  The 100,000 pages of manuals for Air Force One will cost $84 million.

As someone who spent years of his life writing and editing manuals, I'm interested.  A scattershot of points:

• The $84 figure isn't a bogus accounting trick like the infamous hammer and toilet seat of the past (Reagan admin, maybe?). The contract is for $84 million, so it's actual expense to the taxpayers.
• I've no handle on the reasons for the volume of manuals--it seems like overdoing it, but it's the President's aircraft and the military can over specify things.  As I read the article, it's basically taking the existing manuals for the 747 and working in the material for all the customizations and additions being made to the plane to make it ready for the next president.  
• I wonder about those manuals--the 747 has been around forever, or at least for 50 years, having first entered service in 1970.  Given bureaucracy, there's some likelihood that portions of the manuals were first written 50 years ago.  I'd hope that's not the case.  But when bureaucracies keep COBOL systems working for 50 years, similar dynamics could have kept manual text and organization the same for 50 years.
• It's probably inevitable that manual writing would be separated from the people who actually know the plane but it's a danger point--raises the possibility of miscommunication between the doer and the writer.
• I wonder about innovations in manual design and delivery.  I know some maintenance manuals for some functions in the world, I forget what and where, have been computerized and redesigned to work through visual displays, like the former Google Glasses or virtual reality displays.  I believe some apps have been released which allow you to point a phone at a product on store shelves and pull up information on it, like nutrition data, etc.  It seems to me logical that manuals could use a similar delivery system.  If so, are "pages" the right term, or has terminology changed the definition of a "page"?

Crops Under Solar?

I'm a bit dubious about this.

Construction is slated to begin this spring on a 1.2-megawatt solar array on the Kominek farm. Some 3,300 solar panels will rest on 6-foot and 8-foot-high stilts, providing shade for crops like tomatoes, peppers, kale, and beans on a five-acre plot. Pasture grasses and beehive boxes are planned for the perimeter.

I guess it might work, since the veggies will get early morning sun and late afternoon sun.  Production won't nearly match that from acreage dedicated to the crop, with no shading, but there's advantages to two streams of revenue.

New Faces and Covid-19

The pandemic is impacting our politics in a number of ways. 

One impact is the rise to prominence of new faces, or the increased prominence of older faces. Those politicians who seem to do well in leading their organizations get good press. The governors and mayors of the country gain'; the legislators tend to recede. Gov.Cuomo of NY is one of the older faces, Gov. Newsosm of CA is one of the newer faces. London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, is definitely new.  All of the newly prominent faces can learn from the fate of Rudy Guiliani, who became prominent after 9/11, but failed to reach higher office.  

As we used to say: "different strokes for different folks".  

The Real Problem With the Trump Administration

I think the real problem with the Trump Administration is revealed in a Just Security timeline of the response to covid-19.

On Jan. 13, 2017 the Obama administration presented scenarios of pandemic responses to the incoming Trump administration:

Trump administration attendees include: Steven Mnuchin, Rep. Mike Pompeo, Wilbur Ross, Betsy DeVos, Dr. Ben Carson, Elaine Chao, Stephen Miller, Marc Short, Reince Priebus (resigned), Rex Tillerson (fired), Gen. James Mattis (fired), Rep. Ryan Zinke (resigned), Sen. Jeff Sessions (resigned), Sen. Dan Coats (fired), Andrew Puzder (not confirmed), Dr. Tom Price (resigned), Gov. Rick Perry (resigned), Dr. David Shulkin (fired), Gen. John Kelly (resigned), Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Linda McMahon (resigned), Sean Spicer (fired), Joe Hagin (resigned), Joshua Pitcock (resigned), Tom Bossert (fired), KT McFarland (resigned), Gen. Michael Flynn (awaiting criminal sentencing), Gary Cohn (resigned), Katie Walsh (resigned), and Rick Dearborn (resigned).

Note all the turnover, both "fired" and "resigned". To me this says or conforms:

• too much change at the top, meaning leaders lack accumulated experience and familiarity with their agencies
• a likely disconnect between the President and the bureaucracy
• failure to attract top people as replacements--who wants to work for a boss like Trump
• a corrosive atmosphere at the top--a mixture of fear and apple-polishing.

Farm Income for 2020

From Illinois extension:

DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton reported this week that, “An updated economic analysis looking at the impact of COVID-19 projects crop farmers to see $11.85 billion in lower revenue in 2020 and all livestock sectors combined to see a $20.24 billion drop in receipts for the year.

And here, a report of "nearly $25 billion" in federal aid to farmers.

So farmers overall will make out okay this year?  

(Actually, because the aid can't exactly match the losses, some farmers will make out well, others will lose bigly.)


[Updated: see this report on where the aid might go.]

DOS and COBOL

Last week I saw references to both COBOL and DOS (see this FCW piece and this piece from Slate); I think both in connection with unemployment insurance systems which are running on ancient software.  I never did much programming with DOS (I was more into WordPerfect macos) but I did take courses in COBOL and did one application as a sideline to my regular job.  The System/36 ran COBOL as did the mainframes in Kansas City.

I can understand why both private and public organizations still run COBOL.  Every change of software runs the risk of creating new problems, so if you've got an application that runs without problems and supports the organization, there's little reason to switch to a newer language.  That's particularly true if the organization is adding new programs or functions, so available people and work hours are needed to support the new.

All that said, the downside of keeping the old programs is you have to live with the old silos and the old thinking, forgoing chances to integrate, and likely forcing you to invent kludges or bridges on occasion. For example, with issuing the federal payments under the current program (CARES), I suspect Treasury had to write new programs to match ID's in IRS files against those in unemployment files.

Impacts of the Pandemic--Social Science

Social science will have a field day analyzing the impacts of the pandemic.  Economists and other social scientists have had to make do with "natural experiments".  They look at the differences in outcome for those who win a lottery (for money, for healthcare, for college entrance) and those who don't.  Or they try to compare different but comparable political subdivisions.  Or, as when air traffic was grounded after 9/11 they look as disasters. As the pandemic subsides they will find:

• a vastly expanded set of such experiments, given how the timing of events has varied.
• a new scope to such experiments, examining the effects of the pandemic shutdown on all aspects of social activity.
• 
  

Social Media and the Virus

I often see references to "viral" social media--used to be a blog post, now it's tweets or memes (call them "events")  The metaphor works because there are parallels between social media events and viral infections.  Each event or infection can end with the person, or it can trigger an event or infection in another person.  When the average odds of replication (R)is equal to 1 or greater, you get exponential growth.

The difference is in the nature of the effect.  Social media events can be positive or negative, an infection can be slightly or very negative in effect. 

The Three Silos: Food Supply in the Age of Covid-19

The pandemic has revealed we have three silos in the food supply system:

• commodity agriculture supplying supermarkets and groceries.  This silo is working pretty well.
• food service agriculture supplying restaurants and fast food outlets.  Because the restaurant industry is closed down, except for delivery service (a possible fourth silo), this silo is in deep trouble.  Farmers supplying milk are having to dump, those supplying produce are having to dump. 
• the direct to consumer (Community supported agriculture and farmers markets).  This silo seems also in trouble according to this Times article.

The net result of the pandemic may be a setback for the farm-to-table movement.

[Updated: another Times article.]

Why No Commodity Purchase Program Under Sec. 32?

This is triggered by a twitter exchange I had today.

"Never" is a long time. While it's true they don't get direct payments, except when natural disaster destroys production. Produce farmers very occasionally get assistance from USDA purchases under Sec. 32 authority when prices have gone to hell.

— Bill Harshaw (@BillHarshaw) April 8, 2020

Back in the day USDA might have used "Section 32" authority to purchase fruits and vegetables (I don't think milk, but milk is its own complicated story) which were in temporary surplus, meaning prices were depressed below the level farmers expected/wanted/needed.  USDA purchases were intended to drive up prices, since the established programs covered only storable commodities (including milk, storable as butter and cheese).  The commodities would be donated to school lunch programs or various other food programs. (At some points in the past surplus potatoes were destroyed--see this Congressional Record reference.) For example here's an appropriations hearing in 1964 discussing the sweet potato removal program. I was never involved in administering these purchases, but ASCS/FSA was.

Of course these purchases were in response to lobbying by the producer group--if they could build the heat on USDA hot enough the Secretary would pull the trigger on the purchases, which would take the heat off until the next time. Over the years, as briefly described in this  description of the authority, the expansion of crop insurance to more crops and the establishment of the Non-insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) (one of the reasons I retired, though that's a story for a different time) lessened its use, and in 2008 the law was changed further to restrict the Secretary's authority.